Aristotle writes: "Cases of falling short in the taking of pleasure,
and of people enjoying themselves less than they ought, are not apt to
occur: for such insensibility is not human: but if there be any one to
whom nothing is pleasant, and all comes alike in the matter of taste,
he must be far from the state and condition of humanity: such a being
has no name, because he is nowhere met with." This is true, because
where there is question of a virtue, such as Temperance, resident in
the concupiscible appetite, we are not concerned with any sullenness
or moroseness of will, nor with any scrupulosity or imbecility of
judgment, refusing to gratify the reasonable cravings of appetite, but
with the habitual leaning and lie of the appetite itself. Now the
concupiscible appetite in every man, of its own nature, leans to its
proper object of delectable good. No virtue is requisite to secure it
from too little inclination that way: but to restrain the appetite
from going out excessively to delight is the function, and the sole
function, of Temperance. The measure of restraint is relative, as the
golden mean is relative, and varies with different persons and in view
of different ends. The training of the athlete is not the training of
the saint.

3. Besides the primary virtue of Temperance, and its subordinate
species (enumerated above, n. 1), certain other virtues are brought
under Temperance in a secondary sense, as observing in easier matters
that moderation and self-restraint which the primary virtue keeps in
the matter that is most difficult of all. St. Thomas calls these
_potential parts_ of Temperance. There is question here of what is
most difficult to man as an animal, not of what is most difficult to
him as a rational being. To rational man, as such, ambition is harder
to restrain than sensuality: which is proved by the fact that fewer